Embibe receives $4 million funding from Kalaari & Lightbox

Online education platform Embibe that helps students prepare for entrance tests has received a $4 million funding from Kalaari Capital and Lightbox Ventures, reports Times of India. The fresh capital will be used to strengthen Embibe’s student and teacher network, getting more exams on to the platform and for deepening its research around performance improvement.

Embibe offers questions that were asked in competitive exams like IIT JEE and BITSAT over the previous years to students. The platform then evaluates their answers and informs the students where they stand in terms of accuracy attempt and coverage. It measures reports and identifies gaps in a student’s practice. It claims to have ex-IITians as part of its faculty.

Eventually, Embibe plans to offer medical prep tests and offer their services to emerging markets like China. Currently, it claims to have over 15,000 users on its website.

The company was founded in 2012 by Aditi Avasthi. Initially, it was backed by Sandeep Murthy, who lead the India investments of Silicon Valley VC firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures. Recently Murthy with his partners launched Lightbox – a $90 million fund. Embibe is their first investment according to the report. The newly created VC firm had absorbed six companies Sherpalo and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) had invested in India.

The market for e-learning and entrance coaching has been mainly dominated by brick-and-mortar training centers, but is seeing a shift with online players like VidyaMandir.com, Topper.com and Edutor. There have been movements in the funding scene as well, with LEAP recently raising an undisclosed amount of funding from SAVF, and Pearson’s tie-up with IBM for e-learning classrooms. Learnpedia, a Hyderabad based digital content startup, had secured an undisclosed sum of funding from Ixora Ventures and a consortium of angel investors. Mertination meanwhile, had raised Rs 10 crore from InfoEdge in late 2013.

We have written to Embibe and Kalaari to confirm this deal. The details will be updated soon.